More Than 100 Contract Virus On Calif. Cruise, Voyage To Continue

The Crown Princess cruise ship 'Hamilton' is at quay at Venice's port on December 2, 2012. The ban on cruise ships sailing too close to the coast in Venice and in nature reserves was imposed after the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia luxury liner off Giglio island in January, notably to protect the environment. (credit: VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — More than 100 passengers have now contracted the highly contagious norovirus on a ship that is touring the California coast and sat docked in San Diego on Thursday, but the cruise line says it has no plans to cancel the voyage.

Some 104 passengers and 25 crew members on the Crown Princess had been infected by the cruise’s fifth day, but fewer than 15 were still complaining of the gastrointestinal symptoms that come with the virus, Princess Cruises spokeswoman Karen Candy said. Fifty people have been quarantined in their cabins because they could still be contagious.

There were no plans to cancel the cruise that’s scheduled to end in Los Angeles on Saturday, because the sick represent only about 3 percent of the more than 3,100 on board, and most were recovering quickly.

Passengers can leave the cruise voluntarily at any of the planned stops, Candy said.

The numbers of infected people did reach the 2 percent threshold that requires the cruise line to report the outbreak to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which it has done.

The ship was getting a thorough sanitation while docked in San Diego on Thursday and would get an even more intensive one at the end of the journey Saturday. The Crown Princess is on a seven-day cruise from Los Angeles that includes stops in San Francisco and Santa Barbara.

It is rare, but not unheard-of, for a cruise ship to turn around and go home because of norovirus.

In January, a Royal Caribbean cruise with similar numbers aboard canceled its voyage and returned to New Jersey after nearly 700 people contracted norovirus in one of the worst such cases in 20 years.